I just began my serious weight-loss adventure 19 days ago. I am a student in a field where I see people every day suffering from the effects of poor health choices, and I decided that I do not want to follow in their footsteps.
I want to work with an RD, but unfortunately there are none in my area covered by my insurance. Therefore, I am kinda making this up as I go along and trying to be as well-informed as possible.
I have started to track my calories daily with the LoseIt app, and I have purchased and started walking on a treadmill about 45 minutes/day at 3 mph. My food choices have changed - much more whole grains, much more vegetables, and more fruit (I already ate a lot of fruit), much less processed stuff, and zero eating out.
However, my LoseIt calorie allowance that was calculated for me seems really high, like 2,600. But even with all that, I find that I am hungry All. The. Time. In fact, I feel like I am often hungrier after eating than I was before! (Especially apples - I love apples but they make me hungrier!) I find this really frustrating and kind of depressing. And I often feel as if I need to eat more, since I pretty regularly feel light-headed, especially after breakfast. I try to eat a lot of protein to fill me up, or water-laden foods like watermelon and salad and grapes, but even then, I am only temporarily full, for maybe 30 minutes maximum. Then, my stomach starts growling or sitting on the edge of growling, so it feels like true hunger.
Basically I am at the point of wanting to eat more, because I'm hungry, but not wanting to eat more because I don't want to go over my calorie limit. It's frustrating and I don't really know what to do - does anyone have suggestions for really filling foods or anything?
But I'm thinking: if I am hungry on 2,600 calories, I wonder how many calories I was eating before! Must've been an enormous number!
Can you give us idea of what, specifically, you are eating? What did you eat yesterday, for example?
(Some of it might be psychological: you are super aware of what you are eating, and you know you are restricting to some extent, and so part of your brain wants to believe that you are being deprived and are being starved to death. If it's that, you'll just have to figure out a way to get past it.)
IMO if you don't feel full eating water-laden foods & fiber-rich fruits like apples, not many foods will make you feel full. You're eating very stomach-filling foods at the moment, so it's probably (like DietViet said) a psychological inclination towards food instead. You could try tricking your mind by making your food look like more than it is. I know I always slice up my apples, strawberries, hardboiled eggs, etc. and plate it so that it looks like I have a lot of food & calories when I don't.
It also might have something to do with your increase in grains/sugar intake. Both are healthier than processed crap, but sugars, wheat, gluten, etc. don't tend to make you feel full for long since they're prone to go to fat storage quickly.
1. Can you please give a full account of a typical day of eating?
2. Have you lost weight on 2600 calories thus far?
I have a couple of theories off the cuff from what you wrote: Could just be kind of in your head as far as feeling hungry all the time; like now you have a limit it makes you think about food all the time. My second theory could be that you are very carb/sugar sensitive. Even though fruit is a healthy food as far as beneficial nutrients, some people are very sensitive to any kind of sugary food and it triggers hunger big time.
The lose it app will adjust your calories as you weight in each day. The thing that really helps me is drinking a big glass of cold water while I'm eating, or some 2% milk. As far as the foods I would say (without knowing what your'e eating) add healthy proteins to your meals and snacks because it helps you keep your full feeling. Like for breakfast I eat oatmeal and an egg (and of course coffee!). Hope that maybe helps some. Don't give up
I started in a similar place and for me what worked was eating small amounts every 2 hours. I found I was going to be hungry that often regardless of how much I had eaten anyway so I began to eat small amounts to have lots of eating events. It's as though my body sent the hungry signal as soon as my stomach was empty, not based on processing the calorie load. So breakfast would be 1 cup cereal with 1/2 c. of milk and 2 hours later, a hard boiled egg, 2 hours later a cup of yogurt, 2 hours later 1/2 sandwich...
One problem a lot of people suffer from, myself included, is being accustomed to eating large amounts of food, causing both our bodies and our stomachs to grow. I am not necessarily sure about how true the whole "your stomach will shrink" part, but I find that for a lot of people it takes a while for their bodies to adjust to actually tracking and consuming the proper amounts of food. This can be because of growing up and eating what is actually WAY to much. Especially when looking at North American standard food sizes at restaurants. I can easily finish my plate at most places when in actuality, that was 2-3 serving sizes!
However, over time our bodies start to get accustomed to eating less food and one day you will realize that it is taking smaller amounts of food to actually fill you up (for most people anyways). I know that after 3 months of tracking what I ate and eating proper serving sizes, I stopped feeling like I had not eaten in weeks, even tho it had only been 30 minutes since I finished my last meal.
However, over time our bodies start to get accustomed to eating less food and one day you will realize that it is taking smaller amounts of food to actually fill you up (for most people anyways).
This is true for me, but only to a degree. While I'm no longer ravenous all the time, there isn't a day when I don't feel I could comfortably eat twice as much. That's where the trade-off comes in.
Y'all are awesome! - I definitely agree that 1) I need to eat more protein and 2) making my food look like more by slicing it up are terrific suggestions. I also love the idea of eating something small every two hours - just knowing I have to wait a long time before my next meal probably makes it worse in my head. And it makes sense that it will take my body time to adjust to eating smaller (and more correct) portions.
A typical food day for me is:
Breakfast - Activia light yogurt (70c); either a thin sliced whole wheat bagel w/ 1 tbsp fat free cream cheese or a hard-boiled egg or oatmeal; banana
Lunch - Healthy Choice with chicken and broccoli (around 280-320c); apple; banana; whole wheat triscuits or wheat thins; light string cheese; baby carrots; fat free sugar free pudding
Dinner - salad w/ 1 tbsp fat free dressing; chicken breast or turkey sandwich w/ light mayo and 45 cal whole wheat bread; baby carrots; broccoli or green beans; banana; grapes or watermelon; V8 juice
Snacks - I usually eat a pack of peanut butter crackers throughout the day to stave off hunger and lightheadedness; yogurt occasionally; light soy milk with whole grain cheerios occasionally; apple or grapes or watermelon daily; baby carrots daily; special K bar soon before going to bed
I also drink, and always have, 6-8 bottles of water a day, no sodas or juices (except I have recently added V8 juice in an attempt to get more veggies, ish).
Looking at it, it does look like I could use a lot more protein, but I don't necessarily know where to get that from. I also am not a vegetable fan...
I have lost 4-5 pounds in 3 weeks so far. I have my goal with LoseIt set at losing 1 lb a week, so I can go nice and slow and steady and hopefully be more effective in the long run that way, so my loss seems to be in line with that so far.
More protein, more fat, fewer carbs and less fruit!!
Lots of your calories are coming from carbs and fruit, which means that lots of your calories are coming from sugar. Lots of us get and remain hungry if we eat too much sugar (even healthy fruit sugar.)
If I were you, I'd want to work on learning to cook so that I could lay off the carbs and processed food, but ymmv. Stir fries are easy and very helpful for getting in protein and veggies.
That is a very carb heavy menu. When you enter your food into your program does it break down your macronutrients for you (carbs/fat/protein)? That will give you an idea of what percentage of your intake is carbs. Carbs will drive your hunger. They cause your blood sugar to spike and then crash, especially true with highly processed carbs, high fructose corn syrup and liquids with high sugar content.
It also might have something to do with your increase in grains/sugar intake. Both are healthier than processed crap, but sugars, wheat, gluten, etc. don't tend to make you feel full for long since they're prone to go to fat storage quickly.
I doubt that the OP has increased her grain/sugar intake. The SAD (Standard American Diet) has plenty of those things. What is more likely is that her fat content has decreased a lot. Fat tends to make you feel fuller more so than carbs because blunt the insulin response a bit which helps mitigate blood sugar levels from spiking and then crashing which is a big cause of the hunger in my opinion. Also - as an FYI - carbs are not stored as fat in humans except in very small amounts and even then it takes some real specific and unusual circumstances for it to happen.
Lindygrins - welcome and a big CONGRATULATIONS for taking action to decrease your weight and improve your health.
My assumption would echo others. Too many carbs, not enough protein and fat. Don't worry about a magic number for a macronutrient ratio. Just try to limit your carbs to those in fruits and veggies.
Also, I would personally suggest you lower your calories. It might make things a bit tougher for a couple days or even weeks but ultimately you're unlikely to be able to maintain at that level anyways. You've got to train your body and your mind.
In my opinion the best way for most people to live is not to think of any foods as completely off limits but to understand that certain foods are going to have to be restricted while others are going to have to be severely restricted.
Over time if you pay attention to how different foods affect your appetite and energy you'll develop the best way of eating for you. Just remember when you hear people say what worked for them that it may or may not work for you. For example - you might find eating every 2-3 hours is best to keep your appetite at bay or you might find that you're more like me where I do best eating 2 large meals a day and that's it.
For exercise I would highly advise you to lift weights. Weight lifting is the best exercise for weight loss in my opinion and plenty of science backs me up. The reason is that when you burn your glycogen stores your body adapts to the input in a number of ways beneficial to weight loss that cardio simply does not do. From a vanity standpoint weight lifting will make you look better naked than cardio ever will.
Be careful where you get your information. There is far more bad information out there than good. Personally I am a big fan of Lyle McDonald.
Eggs, beans, meat, fish, dairy, nuts.
be careful with protein bars because they are usually very high in carbs. If you decide to buy protein shakes make sure you get the mix that isnt full of corn syrup. I would say don't do the bagel and cream cheese, its lots of calories and wont keep you full, but instead more fruits and veggies in the morning and more eggs. Maybe make some smoothies, there are lots of good healthy smoothie recipes out there. and the two hour window between eating is a great idea. Oh and be careful of frozen meals, I know they are easy but some are super high in sodium.
Starting out and starving (long)
